Just the other day I noticed HN take a heavy hand on removing an article that hit the homepage about a virologist publishing a paper that suggested the only logical explanation for COVID is that it’s manufactured.
There are absolutely topics and perspectives that are not welcomed on HN, as the lead moderator it would be unwise in my opinion to think otherwise (given your biases would be the most threatening to an open forum) and you naturally would have a tough time identifying the absence of a perspective you don’t share.
As an example, I would challenge you to pick five articles that discuss unions that hit the homepage on HN and see what % of threads (and how much of the up vote they accounted for) were inherently anti union. I would also be sure to give only partial credit for threads that added boiler plate sentences saying something along the lines of “while I believe in the value of XYZ” because that’s basically a requirement to take any contrarian (to liberal / Silicon Valley ideology) or conservative view on this site. I can give you a laundry list of topics that will show this trend.
From my (biased) perspective (and from someone outside of the valley reading this site religiously for 13 years) HN is increasingly hostile to certain perspectives (and I’m not talking about social issues here). I don’t care much about it - I just opt out - which is the point.
It seems to me that you're confirming my point by making a strong generalization about HN based on what you noticed and disliked. I assure you that the people who dislike the opposite things notice the opposite things and make the opposite strong generalization.
If you're talking about the covid submissions that gus_massa came up with, they were flagged by users. In one case we lessened the penalty and the other looks like one we didn't see. I do think that it's unlikely that HN can have a curious conversation about that theme, much as we might both prefer otherwise. I don't think you can validly draw significant general conclusions from that.
For the record: I rather think that comment validates my view. This is what you're hearing: "This guy is complaining that you took down a winger conspiracy theory that got upvoted, therefore HN must be balanced."
Here's what I hear: "A winger conspiracy theory goes to the top of the HN front page before being taken down! That means that the voting population of HN is horrifically skewed."
See the difference in perspective? I'm happy you take conspiracy stuff down, I really am. But I'm not happy about the population that pushes it finding a home here, which they clearly have.
You're drawing extremely skewed conclusions about the "voting population" of HN. One of those posts made it to #16 before being flagged, the other did not make the front page at all. It takes only a handful of votes to make the front page (much of the time, anyhow—it's complicated), and #16 is not high—any sensational story can easily get that far before being flagged down (and by the way, it was users who flagged it down, not us).
HN is a large enough population sample that you'll find that scale of upvoters upvoting anything, some of the time. You can't conclude anything significant about the "voting population" of HN from that, and the fact that you're doing so strikes me as an indication of what I'm arguing—that your generalizations about HN are determined by your own ideological priors, just as people with opposite ideological commitments arrive at the opposite generalizations, and by exactly the same mechanism.
I think you'd arrive at the same conclusion that I have, if you were forced as I have been to look at all sides of this under unrelenting personal pressure. I also think that I'd be arriving at your conclusion if I hadn't been forced to have this experience. That's a pessimistic conclusion—it means that rational discussion of this is probably not possible. (I mean that structurally—not a personal swipe but exactly the opposite, and I hope that's clear.)
I really appreciate the time you put into hashing this out Dang (And newacct583), on a Saturday night no less. I love and am grateful for what you and this community do for me personally. I have a lot to reflect on and will drop the point. Good night team.
> One of those posts made it to #16 before being flagged, the other did not make the front page at all.
Well, presuming we're talking about the minervanett.no article, there's also this submission that made it to #2 with 24 votes and 18 comments in the 10 minutes before it was flagged to death:
[flagged] The most logical explanation is that it comes from a laboratory (minervanett.no)
> You'll find that scale of upvoters upvoting anything, some of the time.
I found that to be a surprisingly high number of votes in a short period of time, likely indicating that there is a substantial population on HN who would have liked to discuss that story but were prevented from doing so by a (presumably) much smaller number of flags. Is it actually common for stories without a broad degree of interest to get that many votes in their first few minutes?
> it was users who flagged it down, not us
Technically, but I'm hoping that you try to review the flagged stories and recover the ones where you disagree with the flagging? Otherwise this would seem to allow a "tyranny of the minority" where a small number of people who want to prevent a discussion from taking place are able to enforce their beliefs on the rest of the larger group. I'm a lot more comfortable with you using your expert judgement than with trusting that flags will always be used appropriately without review.
Ah, that was the one I remember seeing. In such cases, if (a) article is substantive and (b) there is a chance of an intellectually curious discussion, we turn off the flags and (probably also) downweight the article as a counterweight to sensationalism, which always attracts extra upvotes. In this case (b) seemed hopeless, so I didn't.
Sorry, I kept editing, probably after you had already posted. And I should be clear that I don't have a strong opinion on whether this particular article is actually appropriate for discussion here. I do think it's an example, though, of how certain topics are "off limits" because a small group does not want them to be discussed. For me, it exacerbates my long standing worries that abuse of flagging (or the counter-reaction thereto) may be the eventual downfall of HN.
> I do think it's an example, though, of how certain topics are "off limits" because a small group does not want them to be discussed.
> For me, it exacerbates my long standing worries that abuse of flagging (or the counter-reaction thereto) may be the eventual downfall of HN.
It doesn't really worry me, but topics that I may have wanted to discuss on HN long ago and try to today on some posts, I usually spend more time elsewhere discussing them now and less time on HN doing so because they usually have a very short shelf because of the above and that's fine for me, but maybe not HN.
The typical ones are horrific, with many having been started explicitly for political battle.
The common tactic for something like "virus from a lab" would be to move the goalposts and hope the reader doesn't notice. Breeding coronaviruses in a lab actually happened, with scientific papers published about how genetically engineered cells with both human and bat traits were used to help the bat coronaviruses adapt to growing well in human cells. A typical fact checker tactic would be to purposely confuse that fact with the claim that the virus was created from scratch, modeled in a computer and assembled by a machine. Supposed experts say that this is impossible, and so the fact checker can claim that the fact was proven false... but it was a straw man.
The URL you gave is not quite so directly misdirecting, but still vague and IMHO just wrong. I've looked over the scientific papers, and I think the evidence is clear.
> In such cases, if (a) article is substantive and (b) there is a chance of an intellectually curious discussion, we turn off the flags and (probably also) downweight the article as a counterweight to sensationalism, which always attracts extra upvotes. In this case (b) seemed hopeless, so I didn't.
That's the point, in my opinion at least.
Above you say:
> This site may feel like a "consensus echo chamber" but in reality it is nothing remotely close to that. I think you may be running into the notice-dislike bias...
If a certain class of articles get flagged by a large number of people who have a strong dislike for the topic, and you as the moderator are ok with it because here at HN with the culture being the way it is you allow it to be removed because it won't generate "intellectually curious discussion", then how can you say that HN is not a "consensus echo chamber" when it comes to these particular topics?
It seems to me there are some very obvious errors in your explanation above. You can run this forum however you want, but being aware and transparent about what topics are and are not allowed seems like a better way to do it than disingenuously explaining away flaws. No person is omniscient, however it may seem that way. Just as you can observe flaws in other people evaluation that they themselves cannot see, is it not possible that you too may have some flaws that you cannot see?
It's more complex than just "what topics are and are not allowed". Threads are extremely sensitive to initial conditions. One thread might discuss a topic within the site guidelines while another thread on the same topic might turn into a massive flamewar. Subtle (or not so subtle) differences in article, headline, URL, site design, and who knows what else can make the difference too. The decision I made was based on the thread, not the topic. As I mentioned above, we reduced the penalty on one of those threads. We wouldn't do that if the topic were "not allowed".
Is it possible that I may have some flaws that I cannot see? That is beyond possible, it is certain. The trouble with these arguments though is that operating this place is a lot more complicated than people assume it is, and so they say oversimplified things like "aha, you are suppressing topic X so HN is an echo chamber after all" and I have to try to fill in the information gap before we can have a sensible conversation about what the actual flaws might be. I'm super interested in the flaws—but first we have to be talking about the same world, which unfortunately is already not so easy.
I am well aware that it is complicated. When a controversial thread is reported, a rather large number of variables are referenced by your mind - some of these you are aware of, some of them you are not.
But at the end of the day, in the aggregate, either there is zero slant (by topic) whatsoever, or there is greater than zero. Based on my anecdotal observations over a long period of time, my perception is that there are indeed certain topics that are less welcome than others, and the assurances I've read, while plausible, do not seem adequate. If we were able to see a log of removed topics it may be more reassuring.
I'd rather HN had more freedom of topic discussion at least occasionally as an experiment, and then perhaps we could see if some modifications to guidelines (perhaps just on those threads) could keep things a bit more civilized. If no site is willing to put some effort into finding a workable approach to this problem, it seems reasonable that the world is just going to keep becoming more polarized as people spend more time at sites that are designed from scratch to be information bubbles.
First of all, I'd like to thank the moderator dang. I don't always agree, nor do I expect to agree. I'm comfortable with disagreements.
If we are serious about avoiding echochamber effects, then we shouldn't take voting so seriously. What is wrong with having a polite disagreement? Why should we value popularity?
Have we reached a point where we cannot discuss certain topics as adults? If so, can those individuals not simply choose to opt-out of the discussions?
I didn't read the discussion in question, but I don't understand what stopping a discussion solves. From my perspective discussions should be stopped when they are needlessly toxic, when participants can no longer advance their ideas politely. Humans have limitations, sometimes emotions become too hot. I appreciate when dang closes these types of discussions.
An illegitimate reason to censor would be to remove ideas which cannot be countered, but the reader disagrees with. Some people find disagreements and discussions disturbing. Others enjoy the opportunity to challenge their ideas, as a matter of 'intellectual curiosity'. Some simply relish in the tactics of formulating arguments, regardless of the underlying position.
> I didn't read the discussion in question, but I don't understand what stopping a discussion solves.
The explanation dang gives above is that it prevents discussion that is not "intellectually curious". This type of discussion occurs on HN on a daily basis, but some topics seem to have an extra layer of moderation filters to go through, presumably because they are nearly guaranteed to create significant disharmony. Which is fine - if optimizing for community harmony takes precedence over free discussion of particularly controversial topics, so be it. I just don't like that combined with a claim that HN is in no way an echo chamber.
But of course, transparency and honesty are simply my personal preferences, and HN can't cater to every individual's personal preferences. Surely there are some people here that would not enjoy having a list of blacklisted topics explicitly published, perhaps because it would give the impression of false equivalency or some other perception like that.
I'll agree that it is an echochamber. Voting/flagging will always cause that. In someways this brand of moderation cements that. Perhaps the lack of willingness to have an explicit list of verbotten topics is a way to avoid ossification or deny that it has happened?
Mises.org and their lengthy critiques of MMT/UBI are shadowbanned. In my reading of what you've explained, it sounds like this is banned because users are incapable of discussing it in good faith?
For me that is a poor reason, we should strive to be better. Moderators should be able handle it. After all if the goal is intellectual curiosity, but the community can't accept critical articles of a heterodox economic theory...
Issues surrounding the CCP are another divisive topic. These threads are usually invaded by pro-CCP trolls and whataboutists.
I agree that it would be nice to have an admission of topics or domains which moderators feel HN is incapable of discussing. I expect that this would challenge users to discuss these topics civilly.
I think the most obvious bias/skew is towards defending the merits of upper middle-class western lifestyle rather than any particular subject in itself. Obviously that will cause certain subjects to be more vehemently defended than others.
An obvious example is where there's a collective disbelief, or perhaps just avoidance, of the bad side of the gig economy since it improves the upper middle-class lifestyle so much that defending it comes naturally even if it's not grounded in social justice.
[Personal opinion: The evidence is not enough to prove that is was created/improved/selected in a lab. It has a few "lucky" features, but normal coronavirus don't cause pandemics, so we already know it is a "lucky" case.]
18 points by haltingproblem 8 days ago | flag | hide | past | favorite | 4 comments
I've seen an article claiming that it spread from the Wuhan Institute of Virology. But not in the sense that they created, improved or selected it. I gather that they were simply isolating and studying viruses from bats that had been collected in southern China. And they were doing that based on concerns about new pandemics, given experience with SARS and MERS, and the expectation that there would be more zoonotic jumps from bat populations.
I would not dismiss his arguments at first sight. but they are presented as anecdotes, not as convincing proof. his gut instinct might be right, because he is experienced, but there should be a proof. And genomics proofs are actually easy nowadays. everybody is familiar with neural networks and how long it needs to come up with optimized mutations. I just miss the mathematical proof of the low likelihood of natural mutations in x generations to come up with that special spike. Note that the period of 10-14 days per generation is extremely fast. Like with the drosphila. extraordinary claims need better proofs.
Google around and you will find it. To me it makes no difference whether it was or wasn’t, what was eye opening was the speed of it hitting and being removed.
It’s the unwillingness to even allow the topic on HN which intrigued me. Believing what I believe (ie my bias) I was surprised it got as far as it did - because I know that’s not the HN community party line - and then noticed it disappeared within seconds of me seeing it on home page. I was the first to comment on it so it couldn’t have been because the threads descended into a flame war and I was unaware of which other guidelines it could have broken given it was a legit site referencing a legit paper in a legit journal (but taking a perspective the broader Hn community won’t tolerate).
> it was a legit site referencing a legit paper in a legit journal
It wasn't. the article explained how they couldn't find a publisher for it. That's why I flagged it, because that's a red flag.
It was also based on the statistical fallacy that Feynman once summed up with "There is a car with license plate GH02B [a sequence with no meaning] outside. What are the odds?!"
Just the other day I noticed HN take a heavy hand on removing an article that hit the homepage about a virologist publishing a paper that suggested the only logical explanation for COVID is that it’s manufactured.
There are absolutely topics and perspectives that are not welcomed on HN, as the lead moderator it would be unwise in my opinion to think otherwise (given your biases would be the most threatening to an open forum) and you naturally would have a tough time identifying the absence of a perspective you don’t share.
As an example, I would challenge you to pick five articles that discuss unions that hit the homepage on HN and see what % of threads (and how much of the up vote they accounted for) were inherently anti union. I would also be sure to give only partial credit for threads that added boiler plate sentences saying something along the lines of “while I believe in the value of XYZ” because that’s basically a requirement to take any contrarian (to liberal / Silicon Valley ideology) or conservative view on this site. I can give you a laundry list of topics that will show this trend.
From my (biased) perspective (and from someone outside of the valley reading this site religiously for 13 years) HN is increasingly hostile to certain perspectives (and I’m not talking about social issues here). I don’t care much about it - I just opt out - which is the point.
Why not run a poll about it?